Super Street Fighter IV Review

It hardly seems like it's been a shade over a year since we saw Street Fighter IV hit our shores, yet here we are and with an update to the King of fighting games. Now this sort of story seems oddly familiar, Left 4 Dead was released in Nov 2008 and as soon as the community caught wind that a fully blown sequel was due to be released 12 months later, well a group of gamers took that news badly, it's as if Valve had entered their houses on Christmas Day and urinated on their presents. Boycotts were announced and everything was turbulent.

Now when Capcom announced Super Street Fighter IV, we did not see the whole boycott thing as a sequel was due the following year, the community seemed to accept the announcement and looked forward to the seminal work from the maestro's of fighting.

The first question that entered our minds was, why is this not just a DLC update? Well Super Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono assured us that the changes being made were so substantial that it would not feasible to release as downloadable content, and required a standalone release while additionally confirming that this would be the one and only incremental release with the Street Fighter IV name. So what's on offer that warrants a standalone release, and in some places commanding a full release price tag?

To start off, the roster of fighters have been bolstered from 25 up to a whopping 35, with old favourites from other Street Fighter games making an appearance along with two brand new faces to get to grips with. So you may look forward to reuniting with the likes of Adon, Dudley, Ibuki, Makoto, Deejay and T-Hawk, while making introductions with newcomers Juri and the ever so weird, yet tremendously oily, Hakan.

Capcom have also listened to the community in regards to removing that god awful J-pop intro music, so no longer will your ears ring with that infectious "Indestructible, I wont let nobody take me down. Indestructible, nothings gonna stop me now. Indestructible, gonna make it gonna keep on coming. Indestructible, The last man standing."

So what else can you expect inside the game apart from new people to play with and no ear raping cheesy music. Well the classic bonus stages are back in arcade mode, you can now happily smash barrels and break cars in a reprieve between stages, however the majority of users will see arcade mode as a mere distraction to where the action really lies in these games.

Multiplayer is where the game has had the biggest overhaul. Player match been removed, balance issues have been addressed, the lobby system has had an overhaul and is more stable, Team Battle and Endless Battle are introduced where up to eight players are able to battle it out. Finally, a Replay Mode has been brought into the game in where you're able to watch live matches on your console as well as uploaded replays. This can be a great tool for watching fights, learning techniques which you were unaware that your character was capable of before going off to practice them in the training mode.

Endless mode allows upto eight players into the same lobby, two fighters start battling it out while the rest of the lobby watch the game live and just like arcade hall rules, the winner stays on to fight the next challenger. However this is easier said than done online as it seems that when someone loses they just leave the lobby and this mode quickly empties out, which is a real shame as it's a good mode for practising against a number of opponents, so unless you have seven friends to play with then you may find it difficult to find a consistently full lobby.

Team Battle is again for upto eight players but you'll randomly get placed in either team red or blue, so when the lobby is full you'll be fighting 4v4, but you can face off 2v2 or 3v3. However you're in the hands of the internet rage quitters which tend to run off after a defeat rather than staying on to try again. Also we've experienced battles in where the lobby is full but the player who goes first is that good that he decimates the opposing team leaving three people watching four matches without them even able to fight so it can be frustrating.

It does seem that even despite Capcom's myriad of changes, online play simply still does not cut the mustard, rage quitters, ultra skilled 12 year old kids swearing at you and the bane of any online gamer lag all spoils the experience of the game. Things happen online that simply would not be possible offline, combo's being interrupted by a flow charted shoryuken, mixed up priorities on hits caused by the lag in-game, frame rates drop when the lag is really bad in a poor attempt to compensate for someone on a crappy connection, it all boils into a seething pot of frustration.

It's not all bad news though, when you do get the good bouts then the game is just magical, just like its predecessors, getting that combo out which juggles or links into a super/ultra is just so satisfying, not to mention glorious to watch. There is just that something special which Capcom have captured even since the days of Street Fighter II that no other fighting game can emulate, nothing else has been able to capture the excitement in people like this colossal franchise has done. Even with the issues the game has, something keeps drawing us back time after time too go toe to toe with each other, giving us a huge amount of enjoyment while beating seven shades of liquid excrement out of our opponents.

Whether you're a Street Fighter veteran or a complete newcomer, then Super Street Fighter IV is an essential purchase for any fighting fan as to be totally honest, Capcom are the Emperor of the fighting genre and should be something experienced by everyone.